1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to seed treaters and, in particular, this invention relates to an automated and programmable seed treater for relatively small amounts of seed.
2. Background of the Invention
The benefits of treating planting seed are well-known. Among these benefits are reduced, or substantially eliminated, incidences of stand loss due to diseases and insects. With the advent of the newer fungicides and insecticides, extremely small amounts of active ingredients are coated on the seed surfaces. Therefore, in order to uniformly coat the seeds, treaters must administer ever decreasing amounts of formulations.
Both continuous and batch seed treaters are known to the art. However, most of these reduced treaters are designed to efficiently treat relatively large seed lots. Smaller seed lots have traditionally been treated by efficient batch systems. These small seed lots are often extremely valuable. Examples of these small seed lots include parent seeds (e.g., breeders, foundation, registered), hand-produced hybrid seeds, and vegetable seeds. These small seed lots must be treated uniformly with fungicides and insecticides to eliminate losses from diseases and insects. Also due to their high value, carryover between the seed lots must be eliminated. Heretofore, the seed lots were treated using inefficient protocols and equipment to eliminate the possibility of carryover. These protocols and equipment often resulted in seed lots, which were not treated uniformly.
To this end, a seed treating device is disclosed in German Patent DE 4411058, issued Apr. 3, 1997, and hereby incorporated by reference. This device has a mixing bowl connected to a high revolution, multi-turn actuator and a mechanism to feed seed into the mixing bowl. The bowl rotates to rotate seed been treated therein. The seed treating formulation is sprayed in the bowl while the seed is being rotated to uniformly coat the seed with the formulation. While effective, this device has two major limitations. The first limitation is that there is no mechanism for horizontally adjusting the position of the mixing bowl during assembly or after repair. Therefore, positioning the bowl requires excessive amounts of time and extensive trial and error. The second limitation relates to the method of forming the mixing bowl. The mixing bowl is formed from several metallic sheets. These sheets are bonded together, then formed into a bowl by being pressed and often hand beaten until the desired bowl shape has been attained. These bowls are not uniform and either size or shape. Therefore, other components must be especially made to fit these bowls. Consequently, repairing and replacing bowls of this treater usually involves replacing other parts as well.
There is then a need for a seed treater, which will efficiently treat small seed lots and which has bowls which are easily adjusted and uniform in size.
This invention substantially meets the aforementioned needs of the industry by providing a continuous batch seed coating system. The present continuous batch seed coating system efficiently treats small seed lots and eliminates carryover between seed lots. The present continuous batch seed coating system includes a coating unit. In a preferred embodiment, the present coating unit has a generally cylindrical lower member, a spin formed rotating bowl-shaped member, and a lid-shaped upper member. The bowl-shaped member is rotatably disposed in the lower member. The lower member, bowl-shaped member, and upper member cooperate to define a seed treating area. Also in a preferred embodiment, an adjustment assembly (mechanism) horizontally adjusts the position of the bowl-shaped member within the cylindrical lower member. The bowl-shaped member may be formed from a single metallic sheet and thus be unitary.
The present continuous batch coating system may further include liquid and dry treatment metering systems for conveying seed treatment formulations to the coating unit. The liquid metering system may include a peristaltic pump. The peristaltic pump conveys liquid seed treatment formulations through a house to the coating unit. The dry treatment metering system may convey dry seed treatment formulations from a hopper to the coating unit via an auger.
A seed metering system may be included within the present batch seed coating system. The seed metering system may include a holding bin with a clamshell gate, a weigh hopper and a load cell. The clamshell gate is closed upon sensing a predetermined seed weight in the weigh hopper. When the coating unit is ready to treat a batch of seed, the weigh hopper dumps seed their within into the coating unit.
The present continuous batch seed coating system may also include a PLC controller. In a preferred embodiment, the PLC controller controls seed retention time within the coating unit, causes liquid and/or dry seed treatment formulations to be dispensed to the coating unit, and actuates the seed metering system to deliver a predetermined amount of seed to the coating unit.
It is therefore an object of this invention, to provide a coating unit with a rotatable bowl formed from a single, metallic workpiece.
A yet further object of the present invention is to provide an upper (lid) coating unit member formed from a single, metallic workpiece.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a coating unit upper (lid) member and a coating unit bowl member with uniform sizes and shapes.
Another object of the present invention is to provide interchangeable coating unit upper (lid) members and coating unit bowl members.